Wikiversity
Little change other than a few people are back who had gone
missing. Steady trickle of activity on the recent changes log.

Citizendium
LOL As one of Larry Sanger's designated TROLL!s there
is zero chance that I will be participating there even if it
managed to improve on Wikimedia Foundation
leadership/governance challenges. However, I was curious to
see what improvements they would choose to make to encourage
success in building a viable community to create and
maintain their fork of Wikipedia. I was amazed to find that
there was very little change other than an up front
charter/manifesto that Larry and Larry's appointed buddies
with P'hds would be in charge and that people were expected
to use their realife identities and give some basic
background information. Sanger recently advertised that he
would be a fixed term dictator, not god king for life, as if
this would be a major improvement. After some consideration
I still conclude that:

1.) Sanger is still an obnoxious self righteous idiot who
probably still does not understand that an ad hominem attack
from an alleged P'hd in Philosophy periodically makes him
look like a ten year old who has managed to get his game
system attached to the internet.

2.) Sanger either brilliantly took my advice regarding mana
and engineering and decided on slow increments of
"improvements" or independently figured out that duplicating
the early Wikipedia environment was a best way to rapidly
recreate Wikipedia's success. Time enough to fix the flaws
after a viable project emerges. By which time he will have
filtered the community to people willing and eager to put up
with him in charge. Exactly the Bomis strategy with
Wikipedia. Brilliant! Again!

So a measure of success is inevitably how long Citizendium
takes to achieve its first viable community fork.

Wikipedia
I have been browsing around Wikipedia doing some research
and considering ways to possibly attract attention to
some Wikiversity projects in which I have interest. I find
the current predictions of doom scattered around the web
from various knee jerk opponents (note: not critics, their
constructive observations serve a critical feedback
function) who
still claim it is a temporary phenomenon which cannot
possibly succeed longterm amazingly tenacious.

Regarding finances. Yes they still beg for money and
allow the servers to slow down response when inadequate
rather than doing some basic long term business planning and
getting the foundation on a solid continuously funded
footing. However, a rapid response emergency plan has been
floated as a balloon on the mailing list. Display google
ads only to unregistered users and only on select pages.
Revenue potential is high and immediate. Jimmy Wales has
previously promised no advertising but I suspect in an
emergency someone could throw him reluctantly into the briar
patch.

Regarding qualityThere have been multiple technical
fixes to quality control and improvement
identified/explained/proposed on the
mailing lists, around the Wikipedia site, in gas station rest
rooms, and even the occasional review by a constructive
critic. Most of these are certainly viable and easy to
implement ranging from based upon stable/unstable release
versions of articles, to threshhold support voting, to etc.
etc. Meanwhile is it simple enough for anyone to revert
vandalism or article rot or click back a few versions in the
history log. Most detractors ignore this through ignorance
or malevolence. Personally I think it is idiotic that a
stable version is not shown until a threshold of trusted
users (can anyone say advogato style trust metric) have
clicked on an [advance to stable version delivered to users]
button as myself and many others have proposed on various
mailing lists.

Many other viable quality control approaches
have been proposed and ignored. Why? I think it is an
artifact of early days when growth was paramount. That
growth recruited people who love the immediacy of the "Wiki
Way!" Whenever the subject of rationalizing version control
and presenting the best available approved version to the
public as default rather than whatever was edited a few
seconds ago the Wiki Way people get hysterical. Every one
else agrees that Wikipedia is not finished yet and drops the
subject to calm the hysterical vanity tweakers, my tweaks
must show immediately to public, cannot be restricted just
to active editors for mere eternities much less days or
weeks or months until ready to satisfaction of trusted
community members.

Of course, Wikipedia will
never be finished. Just like a massive engineering project
the redlines will never be done. Revision control is
necessary to have the correct version of drawings depicting
best known information regarding the facility or equipment.
If used for critical engineering decisions the information
must still be checked against the physical plant, equipment
or software release versions and any redlines hanging in the
drafting queue or in technicians work order files. Granted
it is the responsibility of the Wikipedia user to use the
information responsibly ... why force them to start from
random crap rather than the currently available best version
..... (but if we say it is good they may not check it, but
does this make us responsible if they use the information to
modify a nuclear reactor?, but they should know that after
they check all the information they can fix the mistakes,
and on and on) ....

This is an area where Citizendium may
do us a huge favor. See? Even successful forks can be
invigorating? By their promise to provide easy access
to certified best information available for use at your own
risk, they may force the Wikipedia community to stop foot
dragging and make it easy for casual users to read the best
source text/code available by default rather than whatever
tweaks, vandalism, mistakes, or propaganda happen to be
sitting in the priveleged top queue position pointed at when
John Q. User (not a Wikipediac) requests some reference
information. (but we are a Wikipedia not an encyclopedia or
a body of reference information, editing here is only a fun
way to waste time). This vast improvement of Wikipedia
achieved merely by delivering the stable code vs. the
unstable code to the user by default will not hurt
Citizendium. Their market niche is clearly defined by a
committment that P'hds will have reviewed the material
presented to the random public. Even should the vast pool
of talent at Wikipedia (which does indeed include quite a few
actual P'hds along with some pond scum alleging they have
credentials) match Citizendium's article quality. Their
credentialism should provide a large niche market secure
from Wikipedia in the short term.

Regarding project status Overwhelming success. There
may never be another GFDL general purpose English language
encyclopedia in
the history of mankind that is not derived at least in part
from Wikipedia. I cannot speak for other languages but they
appear to be progressing as well. In a few more years that
statement will be probably be true for most specialized
encyclopedias. Even though "Deletionists" keep claiming
much human knowledge is not "notable" others keep putting it
and more back. Why would anyone start from scratch when
such an excellent body of reusable work available in machine
transparent form exists?

Regarding long term survivalThe English Wikipedia
community seems to have its ups and downs and it would not
surprise me to see the Wikimedia Foundation implode. I
suspect there are backups around the web that could be
acquired by legal action if necessary if someone wanted to
restore the database and start a new community from scratch.
Personally I suspect the Wikimedia Foundation will
eventually get its act together and that the overall
community and database is now rather robust and
indestructible in a Phoenix kind of way.

Most importantly.Should Wikimedia Foundation implode
tommorrow and Wikipedia databases be corrupted and
unsalvageable .... the project (which I view as a prototype
for open engineering activities) is still a resounding
success. It has proven that gnu/linux is not a fluke or a
fad. People
scattered worldwide interested in improving the human
condition via a gift economy can accomplish anything that a
government or a wealthy capitalist could accomplish in the
past and possibly a few things they could not. Can an
operating system be developed and given away for free? Yes.
But that is software whisper/shout the critics. Can an
encyclopedia be developed and given away for free? The
superset Wikipedia (Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia.)
was. But that is merely information. Can a Manhattan style
nuclear bomb or an Apollo style ICBM be developed over the
internet by thousands of volunteers scattered worldwide.
Based upon this google
search for open source car I suspect the answer
is yes. But it would be
expensive and why would you want to? I am curious as to
whether open engineering could help make Lunar and Martian
Tourism an "affordable" reality within a few decades.
Perhaps open source
fabbers will make hardware prototyping a bit cheaper in
the near future. Notice the interesting open source media
wiki the site is using to facilitate coordination. An open
source CAE suite beginning with 3D models and spitting out
engineering drawings and machine code for milling machines
is probably a bit much for engineers to ask of the open
source community before committing to open source software
in a big way. The problem as always is preexisting
proprietary data formats and art. How one would go about
setting up a user friendly collaborative site to talk to
computer illiterate engineers about what software tool
features would be useful in open design of various
components and/or systems for various purposes is currently
a bit beyond me. Fortunately sites such as Wikiversity and
Fabber at Home seem to be springing up in time to begin
supporting the soon to be arriving thousands of open source
engineering teams that may be required to open the new
frontier for the benefit all people everywhere.

We are starting to develop some forward momentum. Several
people have started experimenting with each pedagogical
technique anyone has suggested somewhere on the site. The
recentlog activity is growing as people show up, find a niche,
do something briefly, disappear ... and now a few are back
to check
on progress! Also we have someone checking out how we can
run Java Applets from within the mediawiki code. I
personally am engaged with a couple of learning trails to
demonstrate how concurent design and waterfalls processes
can be combined to deliver artwork and game software
together. If anybody needs some artwork drop by and list
your project and web address or point of contact. Add some
useful tweaks if you can or merely drop your request on the
talk pages. Look around a bit and check back in six months.
Watch it grow into a giant like Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia did. Likewise
if there are any game designers or artists out there who
need some java
support this might in six months be a place to find
interested / interesting java developers. Game
Design and Production Processes using Open Source Tools
We could sure use an initial java developer or serious
student who needs some artwork to help keep the exercises
diversified and not too focused on my personal game project.
cisLunarFreight - merging some capabilities of the classics
asteroids, xpilot, lunarlander with some newer Java applets
a mud and some educational content.

Oh
happy day! Thank you Apenwarr! Now for as long as my
Vaio portable survives with only occasional Windows washing
(data backup, reformatting & reinstallation of applications
every couple of years) I shall be ever grateful I never had
the nerve to hang the cds it shipped with on a Christmas
tree and install a handy version of gnu/linux. For what it
is worth I have hated power suspend functions ever since
they managed to corrupt my Micron/Windows portable a couple
of times at the push of a keyboard button. The solution was
to lose the battery pack and plug in whenever I wished to
use the Micron portable. I am unsure whether this disable
the keyboard button or I merely had finally learned to avoid
the suspend button.

In other news Fedora Core 5 seems unbreakable on the old
x86
I am currently frequently reinstalling on. (No sarcasm. I
need the practice. It actually seems unbreakable. I can
hardly wait to try out 6. Downloading now.) Unfortunately
the hard drive is vibrating like it is on its last legs ....
I may yet have to look up and purchase some hardware soon.

One problem is that people get dispersed to individual areas
of interest.

Another is that no one is quite sure how to use the wiki
format to study, teach and/or publish all at once. Perhaps
this was overly ambitious to expect student notes to
coevolve to high quality material. Mostly I think it is a
lack of small friendly groups with common interests showing
up at the same time. I think people are coming and going
and checking back to see if it is alive yet. 8(

Anyway I trying something new. I am setting up my own
wikimedia server so I can link to Wikiversity from personal
scribbling not really yet decipherable by others. Later
after I clean it up I can cut and paste suitable material
over to the Wikiversity.

Last/first problem is just the blasted interface. It is way
to clunky for studying mathematical physics or engineering.
I guess I will have to get in habit of doing math by hand
first and then keying in information as part of a review or
discussion or publishing process.

I am not sure if our Tex pre/process is working like
Wikipedia's does as I do not know Tex. Perhaps I should
acquire a copy and start learning it.

Some good news. One of our people is talking to one of the
integrated desktop teams ..... I think KDE but I could be
wrong .... they are considering moving their training
support activities to Wikiversity.

I think that will give us a huge boost. First from
knowledgeable development people prototyping good ways to
use the wiki format for training/studying. Second from
steady supply of new participants familar with the wikimedia
software environment for web publishing and interaction.

Back from the grave. Apparently stable short term URLs and a link from Wikipedia -->> The 16th most visited site in the web world according to Alexi. High enough rank that even with serious error bands and over reporting, we should see a steady stream of curious people from Wikipedia main page through Wikiversity trying to figure out what it is and whether it has any value for them.

My niece and nephew were here from Texas last month wondering if there was any way to get some math help next year long distance. Their parents are to my certain knowledge hardcases requiring them to do the work before helping them check it occasionally or providing sustained attention as they work on a tough one. No doubt they thought I would be a soft touch willing to do their work for them. lol

I will give them a call and provide URLs at Wikiversity where we can do some useful tutoring and leave some useful materials behind us for others. If we can work the technology properly maybe some of their buddies will find the site of interest.

Actually I guess I need to make prior contact with their parents and make sure they have had their quarterly briefing regarding internet safety procedures before I send them the URLs. It will be interesting to see how original they are in creating their handles for their user accounts.

If this Wikiversity thing works out perhaps they will be interested enough that we can accelerate their math enough that they will be ready will they get to college. I never really recovered from the deficiencies in my high school access to advanced mathematics. Topped out at basic trig and limits definitions. Not exactly preparation to compete directly with half the engineering students repeating calculus. My high school math instructor told us if anyone asked if we had trig to tell them no. Unfortunately no one asked. If you had the sats to get into the engineering program you were supposed to be ready for engineering calculus. I guess somebody has to get the Cs but it was a serious shock to me after breezing though high school.

Since I was the first from my family to graduate college I really should have no regrets. I just want to see some generational progress. If they want graduate degrees I would like them to have a fair shot at the grades, activities, and socializing necessary for good shots at scholarships and internships.

Perhaps someone at an existing university or other source of decent facility resources will revive the concept when they decide they wish to be at the front of a free information wave.

Worth noting that stable URLs are critical to the formation of a web/wiki community. If nobody can find it, there is no action. If there is no action even the occasional stray participant gets bored and wanders off.